For the record, Tom Nook is an ass.

Here is a video to hold you over until the next post. It’s from Benny Goodman. OMG!! Mad Skillz, they has it.

Today’s Music Minute is from the Swedish dance/pop singer September. The video is kinda dorky, but the song is good.  Enjoy.

Congratulations Michael!

Ouch.

But, yes, those are all valid concerns, and Psyduck appreciates all the e-mails he’s received, both positive and, well, some that’s not so positive. With that, Psyduck’s New May Resolution is to blog more often for the audience that has been faithfully visiting these pages over the past year.

So on with the blog…

Over the past few months, Psyduck was fortunate enough to find several Moleskine City Notebooks on sale at a few local art stores. For those of you unfamiliar with the City Notebooks, they are Moleskine’s version of the D-I-Y travel guide: You get the same fantastic and durable Moleskine notebook, but with the added benefit of a map and street index for whatever city you’ve picked. The blank pages within the City Notebook are broken down into various categories for you to record your adventures in shopping, food, hotels, etc. The only downside to these books is the map; for many cities, the publishers only included a relevant map for a city center, or nearby area. If you are someone who is interested in really exploring a city, you’re best bet is to pick up a real map of the city and keep that with your book. Considering how small the City Notebook is, though, it’s understandable that they had to limit the size of the map.

Anyway, Psyduck had been staring at these books for a while, but with a price tag of almost $20, Psyduck knew that he could spend his hard-earned Pokemon cash on just a few select cities. But one day when his art supplies were low, Psyduck stopped at a few art stores and saw that a slew of City Books were discounted to prices so low, he thought he time-warped back to the 1950s. Psyduck knows the ’50s had super-low prices because Psyduck’s grandpa always told him lots of “back-in-the-day” stories…though Psyduck had a hard time believing that his grandpa went to school uphill both ways. Huh? Back to the books, so instead of paying $20 per book, Psyduck saw that his 1950s price was less than $3 for each book! W00t! Savings FTW!

So, yes, Psyduck bought himself many City Books. Peep the photos:

Psyduck, of course, is a world traveler, so he’ll no doubt make good use of these books soon.

In other news, Psyduck has been spending quality time with his 360 playing Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and GTA4.

A few quick thoughts on both games…

Rainbow Six Vegas 2: The developers pretty much ruined the fun of online multiplayer by allowing random spawn points. To be fair, there have always been issues with spawn campers in the Rainbow games, but any decent team could always free themselves from campers and change the flow of the game. By allowing random spawns, the developers essentially created a slower version of COD4. Nothing against COD4, mind you, as it is an awesome, awesome game, but why does Psyduck need COD4 in his Rainbow Six? If Psyduck wanted to play COD4, then he’d go and play COD4; he wouldn’t fire up Rainbow Six for the COD experience.

GTA4: This is a very, very good game, but it’s not anywhere near a 10. Psyduck has been visiting with the GTA hooligans since Claude ran the show in Liberty City, and Psyduck was expecting some of the fundamental mechanics of the game to be fixed. Walking, running, aiming, shooting — all of those, as well as a few other things, needed to be perfect in this version, and they weren’t. No matter how big the city is, or how pretty the city is, or how alive it feels, all of that is for naught because you are essentially using ancient PS2 mechanics and controls to move Niko through this modern city. Psyduck is impressed with the scale of GTA4, but Psyduck cannot overlook the reality of poor controls. Psyduck is a bit of a hardass about these things.

General Blog News for May

Attention all fashionistas reading this blog: With summer almost upon us, there’s always a need for that special T-shirt to wear to a concert, BBQ or a casual stroll to your local game store. Since your tastes aren’t always available in department stores, be sure to check out the cool shirts made by Reese Ward at this site.

Psyduck wants to introduce you to a new feature in his blogs called Psyduck’s Music Minute. Everyone loves music, and Psyduck is no exception. His tastes span continents and generations, so with the Music Minute, Psyduck’s goal is to bring you clips of tunes he’s diggin’ at any given moment. If you have any Music Minute suggestions for Psyduck, drop him a note and he’ll do his best to post your choices in his next blog.

Today’s Music Minute takes you back to the ’90s with L.A. Style and their hit song, James Brown is Dead.

“Hi Psyduck. I’m listening to my iPod right now and I wanted to know if Psyducks listen to music, too? I think they do, but my friends think I’m crazy.”

Thanks for your note, Jessica. To answer your question, Psyducks listen to music quite often. Just like with people, though, different Psyducks listen to different things. For example, Psyduck’s uncle Jim likes classic rock and the sounds of nature found on his alarm clock. Psyduck’s grandma, on the other hand, listens to Benny Goodman and Snow — she really likes that song Informer.

Psyduck is a big fan of music and his interests run the gamut from dance to oldies to taiko drums. Since Psyduck is often a duck on the move, you can generally find him blankly staring along to the tunes on his Zune. Psyduck was considering an iPod, but he had a bit of trouble using that iPod click wheel, so he went with the Zune and its sexy touch pad.

It took 20 years to make an ’80s cover this good

Going back to music. For the past few weeks, Psyduck has been on a steady musical diet of Kylie Minogue. Kylie’s new album, X, was released last week in America (it’s been out since 11/2007 in other parts of the world) and Psyduck has been dancing to the tunes non-stop. Psyduck really likes this album and thinks it’s one of Kylie’s best to date. Sadly, it looks like many people in the U.S. don’t share Psyduck’s sentiments as the initial sales weren’t so hot. Peep this Kylie fan site for the info: The Impossible Princess. Psyduck’s professional opinion on this matter is that most people in America have no clue that Kylie is still making music, and as such, they have no clue that she has a new album out. These people are clearly living in a sad musical world.

Jessica, because Psyduck is all about educating the musically deprived, and because he’s about giving back, he’s posting a video for one of the best songs from the album. Enjoy.

Kylie Minogue – In My Arms

Thanks for writing, Jessica. As always, a great big thanks to all of you who’ve been e-mailing Psyduck with your questions, comments and blog ideas.

Psyduck will spend the day listening to his favorite band, requesting 311 songs from the local radio stations and spreading the good word of 311 to all who’ll listen!

Sadly, Psyduck wasn’t able to join the 13,500 fans going out to New Orleans for the massive 3-11 Day concert, but he hopes everyone has a great time and stays safe.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with 311, check out their website, www.311.com, for all the latest news on the band. While you’re there, be sure to check out their home videos, music videos, pictures, band history and free songs.

Still don’t know them, then peep these videos:

Classic 311 – Down

Also, during the holidays, Psyduck splurged on a smexy Bumblebee faceplate for his system — peep the awesome yellow color that matches his awesome yellow coat.

Next on Psyduck’s gaming horizon is Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 and GTA4.

Stay tuned for more Psyduck goodness when he shares his thoughts on the Moleskine City Notebooks, more games, and, well, other stuff. Psyduck is full of psyduck stuff to share with his faithful readers.

Oh, in case you didn’t change your clocks this past weekend, do it now.

Why is Psyduck excited?

Psyduck is excited because his Moleskine blog from last week was featured on Moleskinerie, a very popular and informative Moleskine fansite/blog. Psyduck has been a fan of Moleskinerie for a long time and to be mentioned on that site makes Psyduck feel very happy. Just look at the joy in his eyes.

In other news, Psyduck finally got his Xbox 360 back and has been busy playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat. Psyduck was going to start with Halo 3, but after Psyduck played the Call of Duty beta last month, and after learning that COD4 has a much shorter single player campaign than Halo 3, he knew that he’d play that game first and then move on to Master Chief. However, Psyduck will probably not spend too much time online in Halo 3 because there are just too many smart-ass punks like Ash and Misty ruining playing that game. Instead, Psyduck will be calling in air strikes in COD4.